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On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Joseph P. McDonald manned the switchboard at Fort Shafter in Hawaii when he received the alarming message that radar had detected a large number of planes approaching from the north, heading fast for Oahu.
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Motorists who use the Pango mobile app to pay at parking meters in Scranton will get reimbursed for any inadvertent overcharges since Sept. 1, the new operator of the city’s parking system said.
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Recent Gas Drilling News

Keystone Sanitary Landfill wants permission to double the amount of natural gas drilling rock waste it accepts daily and allow drillers to haul the waste to the landfill 24 hours a day.

The landfill in Dunmore and Throop submitted the permit modification request to the Department of Environmental Protection in September. If it is approved, more than a quarter of the landfill's just-expanded average daily waste intake can be Marcellus Shale waste.

The landfill received state approval in March to build and operate a mill to solidify the raw rock, mud and lubricant waste, called cuttings, that is displaced as drillers bore about a mile into the gas-rich shale. Keystone uses the processed waste in place of soil to cover the working face of the landfill at the end of each day.

In its March approval, the state capped the cuttings at 1,000 tons a day and limited mill operations to 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6 to 10 a.m. on Saturdays.

Now, Keystone is asking to accept 2,000 tons of the waste a day and run the mill between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. It also wants permission to allow drillers to drop off the cuttings in a lined staging area 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"This modification is necessary to accommodate (the) around-the-clock nature of the gas drilling industry. It will also provide the added benefit of minimizing the effects of freezing during winter months," Keystone wrote in its application to the state.

The landfill needs to double its daily intake of the cuttings to accommodate "increasing demand," it wrote.

Efforts to reach Keystone's site manager Joseph Dexter were unsuccessful.

The landfill received approval in April to increase its maximum daily disposal capacity for all waste from 5,000 to 7,500 tons and its average daily intake from 4,750 to 7,250 tons, largely so it can dispose of more cuttings.

Although the number of active drilling rigs has dropped in the region with the low price of natural gas, more operators are taking cuttings to landfills instead of storing and eventually burying them in pits on well sites.

Throop officials, who had been outspoken in their opposition to the mill and the cuttings, dropped their appeal of the initial mill plan in April, but vowed to ensure the mill operated within its permitted limits at the time.

Throop borough council President Thomas Lukasewicz said he believes this will not be the last increase requested for a landfill that he said already lacks adequate oversight.

"The state government reductions and restraints placed on the DEP no longer allow for safe review, monitoring and protection of Lackawanna County's residents," he said, explaining that reports on intake have decreased to only one per year.

"I can't even analyze what's coming in there till the end of the year and then it's too late," he said.

Looking ahead, he said he anticipates requests for added pug mills and increases in residual waste accepted.

"I believe that the former Keystone Municipal Landfill, through its collection, treatment and storage of residual waste, will now become the largest residual landfill in the northeast," he added, noting that he believes the landfill will eventually accept residual waste exclusively.

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

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